Los Angeles - the City of Angels

I first came to Los Angeles when I was 23 years old and the night before I was due to fly back to Australia, the woman at my hostel’s front desk asked if I could stay on and work.

In hindsight I remember thinking of this as a bit of a sliding doors moment, I could have stayed in LA but instead returned home. 

The pull of LA must have continued its draw as 15 years later I find myself here again trying to carve out a life for myself. 

My American friend, Rane, says LA is special (something about an energy vortex and magnetic field) and it’s no coincidence, she says, that people follow their dreams here.

Rane has spent a lot of time in India and she told me her swami (a Hindu male religious teacher) observed LA's high spiritual activity when he visited.  

Long before I met Rane, I read Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chilli Peppers' lead singer) auto-biography during a travel safari in Africa.  I recall Anthony’s experience with LA's divine intervention.   

The story goes something like this: 

Anthony was fumbling for his house keys after a heavy night on the drugs (not unusual for him at this time) when he was distracted by a black crow staring down at him. When he looked up, their eyes met and the crow proceeded to screech at him.  Anthony freaked out; viewing this as a sign. The crow, a symbol of the mystic messenger, brought with it a warning: evil is among you. He needed to clean up his act.

After a few weeks in LA, I decided to get with the spirit (if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em) and attended “An Evening with the Archangels” at the Mystic Journey bookstore on Abbot Kinney (a hip street in Venice). 

Two others showed up to the workshop run by ‘angelic healer, spiritual coach and psychic’, Marybeth Murphy. 

It says on Marybeth’s website (www.marybethmurphy.com):

What are Guardian Angels?

They are God’s messengers and helpers and are sent to assist us in any aspect of our lives. They bring thoughts of love, peace and joy and can help us heal our relationships, career concerns and finances. Your Guardian Angels are only assigned to you; their job is to just assist you, no one else. 

At the workshop Marybeth counted three guardian angels around me and the other attendees had two. Even though I doubted her ability to see angels (apparently they show up as white lights, columns per se behind and beside you), I felt rather special about having three guides to the others’ two.  But Marybeth said it’s not like this – there’s no competition in angel land – two is as good as three. 

A few weeks later I’m dining solo at the Japanese restaurant, Wabi-Sabi, on Abbot Kinney. I’ll often take advantage of Happy Hour, a mainstay in many restaurants where for an hour or two food and beverage is at reduced prices. 

I spotted a woman at the counter who looked around my mother’s age when mum died. 

The woman had brown hair (like mum) and a similar haircut. Her mannerisms (smiling, curious and a gentle way) were the same. I watched her as she ordered from the sushi chef and later as she ate her meal. 

Even though it’s been nearly 17 years since my mother died – she came sweeping back into the restaurant.  This woman reminded me of her.  

Incidentally, this has happened before, not often, by no stretch often, but once in a rare while I’ll spot a stranger who bears resemblance to my mum. 

Tears began to well and fell down my face, I didn’t wipe their flow.  I hadn’t been drinking so it wasn’t a drunken melancholy prompting me to cry. I think the waitress noticed and perhaps other waiters too as they walked by.  The sushi chef smiled at me from behind the counter and bowed his head in greeting. 

I watched the woman for a good 15 minutes. When I’d managed to stop crying, she would do something like my mother which triggered the tears again. 

I looked out across the street and saw the word 'MOM' in a shop window display.  It was a paper gift shop and each letter was filled with paper flowers. Mother’s Day was soon. 

I smiled.   

Whether or not I’m fantasising the coincidence, it felt like something mum would do. Send a message through the woman and confirm it was her with the MOM sign.

I’m here even when you feel alone.   

Mum and my three spirit guides looking out for me in the City of Angels.

When in Rome

My parents loved films from the Hollywood Golden Age and I grew up watching a lot of movies from this era.  Bill Collins, the Australian film enthusiast and host of ‘The Golden Years of Hollywood’, was a regular Saturday night fixture on our TV screens as he introduced viewers to classic after classic.

Mum and I shared a mutual appreciation of great actresses – our fondness for Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn and Vivien Leigh to name a few.  My admiration of female acting talent continues to the present day of course (Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Julianne Moore, Naomi Watts to list a handful).

I was a kid when I first saw the 1940s film: ‘Mildred Pierce’ starring Joan Crawford.  I’ve seen it several times since and when Kate Winslet and Guy Pearce came together for the HBO remake I was excited beyond belief (and not disappointed with its result).

But there’s something special about an original – especially a film you’ve loved from your childhood (Wizard of Oz/Grease/Oliver anyone?).

There’s a memorable scene in Mildred Pierce, which is set during the Great Depression, where Mildred spends her day pounding the pavement looking for work. Mildred’s despair and desperation at her dire predicament is clear.  

Digress to Julie Andrews in ‘Victor Victoria’ (also set in the 1930s) when her character is so skint she tries the ‘cockroach in my salad’ approach to skip on paying for dinner (from memory it doesn’t work and she ends up having to wash the dishes).

Such scenes stick – intelligent, talented and capable women who are thrown to the curb but inevitably make their way out.

I’ve been on the job hunt in Los Angeles for a month now.  

Most of my days are spent on the professional networking site Linkedin.  I've built more than 1500 contacts through this channel and with each valuable ‘connection’ I'll personalise a message that relates to my job search.

I’ve met a handful of PR people and continue to schedule meetings through Linkedin but there comes a point when it’s time to branch out and try other means.

My roomie (flatmate) has been saying for a while now that I should just 'show up' (something I’ve resisted because ‘showing up’ at company offices unsolicited is not the way it’s done in Australia).

But when a Melbourne friend and mentor who has spent a lot of time in LA repeated the same mantra, I decided it was time to channel my inner Mildred. 

And what comes of Mildred and her door-to-door job search?  

After an exhaustive day of endless rejection and subsequent blistered feet, Mildred takes respite in a coffee shop.

And it is here where she hadn’t been looking, that she finds work.

Photo: A scene from Mildred Pierce, in Mildred's restaurant.

Lean on me

Moving the other side of the world without a job and limited savings pool means one has to get savvy smart.

It also means I’ve had to drop my guard and lean on others – the most interesting observation I’ve made of myself since being in LA.

It's a tough city and not everyone is dependable, certainly not everyone follows through on what they say they will. 

LA geographically is an urban sprawl and without a car almost impossible to get around. So this was the first step – hire a car. But of course, renting anything doesn’t come cheap thus my second step: buy a car.

This is where my roommate, Rane, lent a hand.  She introduced me to her neighbour who trades cars.  Now Darrell is on the search for me but we’re still looking and I’m still paying a hefty car rental.

Rane has lived in LA for a number of years and rents two places – one in West Hollywood (WeHo) and the other in the upmarket beach precinct Marina Del Rey (next to Venice). We met through airbnb.

She and I share similar values and the match is working well.  Rane lived in Rishikesh for 18mths on an ashram – so we also have the ‘India’ connection. 

Part of my India adventure was to strip it back.  I wanted to shed the skin of my comfortable middle class existence and go back to basics.  India indeed achieved this.  It felt like I was the 21 year old European backpacker again – but even edgier – backpacking with streets full of cow shit!

On arrival in LA I was adequately indifferent to life’s luxuries that I could comfortably do dorm mates again.  Rane and I share the same room in her Marina Del Rey studio apartment – an unthinkable proposition to me before my Indian travels.

But when one’s been through that country and seen how ‘the other half lives’ as well with no real projection as to when my PR career will take off here – it’s amazing how little things like one’s own room and personal space become value-add over necessity.

It’s the rude awakening that I can’t be as independent as I was in Oz nor would like to be.  

Unlike my modus operandi of happily functioning solo - I need people.  And revealing your vulnerability is a tricky position to be in anywhere let alone a city as cut throat as LA.

It’s a difficult transition and an eye-opening life turn but another reason I chose to roll this dice and jump out from the comfort zone.

Man was not made for himself alone - Plato

Americans love to sit at the bar – or in a diner setting, the counter.

I resisted waiters directing me here for a while and requested my place at the table, but these days I just let them perch me where the bench top is too high and the bar stool uncomfortable. 

Even couples choose the bar over a table to eat their meals and it made me wonder what this counter culture was about.

Americans on par are a friendly bunch and my take is they don’t want people to feel lonely. Talking and being sociable comes naturally to them and it would seem they just want to be around others in the dining setting than by themselves.

I asked my room mate in Seattle whether she had an explanation for it.  Sasha said she prefers to sit at the bar when dining solo as people can freely approach her for a chat. It's a comfortable social setting for her and she thinks the majority of Americans share this view.

This style of dining is something I've had to get used to because unlike Americans, I’m used to my seat at the table.  It's where I'm not side by side with strangers inviting awkward small talk, I’m not under the barman’s armpit or across from the chef’s flame, and I can sit back and quietly contemplate whatever I want on my own in relative peace.  

But then, that’s partly why this country’s culture appeals.  I came here to break out of my comfort zone and widen my social circle for new opportunities to open up.

And in America, like the '80s TV sitcom, Cheers, it seems making new friends and acquainting with tomorrow's lovers, starts at the bar. 

Portland stirs time gone by

I’ve spent the last few days in Portland, Oregan, having arrived from the beach town of San Diego.

Why do I like this place?

“How do I love thee?  Let me count thy ways.”

For a start, it’s cooler. I don’t normally dig the cold but the lower temperatures are a novelty after travelling through India and while San Diego isn’t hot at this time of year, its weather is more akin to India’s warmer climate than the cool of North West USA.

So Portland is different to what I've been around lately - the people are rugged up, in an alternative, down to earth sort of way and remind me of the type of person one sees around Brunswick or Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand.  Many of the men have bushy beards, most people under 40 are tattooed and everyone wears a wool beanie.

Portland is set among a beautiful landscape, the air is cool and crisp and the place has a friendly vibe.  It seems colder (in spring) than Melbourne's winter – so climate wise and population size (close to 600,000) it has more in common with New Zealand or Tasmania.

It is clear from earlier blog posts that I have a fondness for New Zealand.  Add to that Tassie, I went twice to Hobart for weekend getaways last year to see MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) and both times ate at the fabulous 'foodie' restaurant Garagistes.

Today on St Paddy’s Day in a quaint, little bar called Interurban in the Portland suburb of Mississippi, I sat at the bar with wooden interior, three mounted deer on the walls, across from rows of whisky bottles (single malt a certain young Kiwi's favourite tipple) and I fell quickly down memory lane.  I found myself reminiscing about that short, sweet interlude in South Island, NZ, where I sat in a bar similar to Interurban  - with my company drinking whisky - and despite the chill outside, felt warm.

All this wrapped in, Portland has been a special place for me to visit.  But it’s also in part for these reasons why I choose not settle here.

Life’s like that. You don’t get too far ahead living in the past.

I head to Seattle on Tuesday. Surely I won’t feel the same romantic sense I do here (having said that, my early 20s were heavily influenced by the Seattle grunge scene and there’s a lot of film and TV that I’ve enjoyed that's set there (Sleepless in Seattle, Singles, Frasier, Grey’s Anatomy, The Killing)).

Seattle is renowned for its hi-tech community, Bill Gates founded Microsoft there.  It’s where savvy entrepreneurs take risks backing ‘start-up’companies setting their sights on a successful future. 

Not a bad place on premise.


Photos - the Portland bar Interurban.

I once was lost but now I'm found

It seems rather apt – given I am a person of faith and in the world’s most spiritual country - that my six week journey through India comes to an end in the holy place of Rishikesh. Not surprising also that I’ve had to put the brakes on my usual traveller’s pace as I finally (we all knew it had to happen right?) succumbed to ill health – run down immune system and upset stomach.

So the last few days in India have been taking it easy and resting in the divine surrounds of the Himalayan foothills by the sacred river Ganges.  I've basked in the nostalgia that this was the place one of my favourite childhood bands (thanks to my dad, mum was more an Elvis fan) The Beatles spent three months to attend an advanced Transcendental Meditation (TM) training session at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Rishikesh attracts its spiritual seekers and yogis gravitate here – the latter currently in abundance for the International Yoga Festival 2013 which carries through the first week of March annually.

I would have liked more time to travel through this expansive country – however to satisfy US visa requirements – I must press on.

Irrespective, it feels time to farewell India this trip. 

I recall saying to my friend Fleur before leaving Melbourne: “I’d like to give it more than six weeks but that’s all I’ve got” and her response was: “I think you’ll get there and find six weeks is enough!”  As usual, she was right.

I met a Canadian here in Rishikesh who has been travelling every Canadian winter for seven years.  His website is www.ronperrier.net.  Ron’s latest post Practical Travel Advice in India describes what one sees in all the Indian towns I’ve visited well.

Ron practiced as a doctor and saved the amount he knew was needed to see the world on his terms.

In a way that’s how I feel about my own path. I’d too like to see the world. I think travelling sets one free and what better feeling (outside love) than that of freedom?

As I read today in a book I bought from one of the many spiritual bookstores in Rishikesh – the thought of a situation (in my case, long-term travel through unknown countries) can terrify us more than the reality.  

Photo - The Beatles, Rishikesh, February 1968.

Postscript - the title of this blog post was inspired by of course the hymn Amazing Grace, but more timely I was listening to the version recorded by musician Krishna Das and Sting while writing this.  I bought three of Krishna Das' CDs in Rishikesh. Krishna Das hails from the US and under the guidance of an Indian guru found a new and awakened life.  He sounds free.  All things said, it seemed right.

There’s good and there’s bad

Despite recent media coverage in Melbourne about the harassment Western women can face from the local men in India – I’m pleased to report the majority of my experience has been smooth sailing.

My six weeks' travel started in the south and ends in the north.  I was warned to expect an onslaught of unwanted attention in the north but I’ve been here nearly two weeks and have noticed no difference between the two.

Perhaps the words of my old work mate, Tom, who is an Australian Trade Commissioner in Delhi, describe it best.  During a rickshaw ride in Old Delhi, I made the observation to Tom that I’d found the trip much easier than I’d expected.  Tom simply said in reply: “It’s a state of mind, Caz.”

I’ve met some wonderful people who have played an important part in making my journey that much easier.

Such as the waiter who returned my wallet after I’d inadvertently dropped it outside the popular cafe in Goa. He handed it to me with full contents – my coveted US green card, my only credit card, and the equivalent of $200 Australian dollars in rupees. 

There was Syam, the London-raised businessman, who I met on the tarmac in Kochi in Kerala after a plane trip from Bangalore. I had turned to the closest Indian person walking alongside me and asked whether I should worry about malaria in the south (apparently not).  

At the baggage terminal, I asked Syam if he could recommend any budget accommodation given I hadn’t booked anywhere and it was getting on in the evening.

Syam called a hotel he regularly refers his London guests to and secured the best rate for me that included breakfast.  He then suggested I share his taxi as the hotel was on the way to his home.

During the ride I established Syam was unmarried with no children, but I was able to avoid any awkwardness by saying I was engaged (refer Hampi post) which made it easy to accept Syam's dinner invitation.

Syam took me to a swish hotel and we ate steak and drank South African wine.  He wrote down the places I should visit in Kerala, paid for our meal, and dropped me back at my hotel. 

Up until Kochi I had been encumbered with three travel bags and for the most part was paying considerably more to hire personal drivers to make it easier to travel with the extra weight.  The most I had paid for a driver was $200 Australian dollars covering a seven hour trip from Hampi to Bangalore airport.  To put this in perspective, a local train ride the same distance would have put me back $2.  Thus I was relieved to finally ditch the added luggage in the hotel’s storage and continue further down south with a lighter load.

I have seldom felt more alive than sitting up the front of a local Indian bus watching the driver skilfully navigate through a mass of activity abound – people going about their business on the street, wandering cows, goats, dogs, rickshaw drivers, bicycles and of course cars, buses, trucks and motorbikes - all the while zooming ahead with impressive speed.

I had a particularly sweet bus driver on the 4.5 hour journey from the hill station Munnar back to Kochi.  The driver had cheekily grabbed my cowboy hat from my seat and put it on his head - chuffed by the attention he received by people as he drove on. 

What an act of kindness he displayed when on one of his short driving breaks he initiated a call to my hotel in Kochi to determine the best bus stop for me to get off!

I experienced a similar goodwill gesture from the hotel staff in Jaipur who sent a personal driver to Pushkar – a four hour journey – to return my credit card that one of their staff had been remiss to hand back to me after I’d signed the bill. 

There are other stories like this – and yes, there are dodgy ones – but the better far outweigh the bad.

Sure I think the blonde hair, big smile and tall stature have played their part in the reception I’ve received.  But overall, I think Tom has nailed it.

 

Getting around India involves a sturdy pair of hiking boots (for the puddles in the potholes and cow dung in the streets) and the right ‘state of mind’.  And true to its spiritual leanings, India serves up its fair share of karma.

Like today in Jodhpur when I shared a ride in a tuk tuk with an Indian woman.  I noticed once she’d got out that she’d accidentally left a top behind.  I asked the driver to wait while I chased after her to return it.

As I waded through the narrow alleyway she had disappeared into I passed a group of local men hanging out in a shop. One called after me (the usual catchcry I hear): “Hello, come into my shop...” and I replied as I ran past, “I can’t, I have to catch that lady, I have her top, she left it in the tuk tuk.”  

I heard him call after me: “Give it to me, I will make sure she gets it.” 

But I carried on and eventually caught her. She gratefully took the top and I made my way back to the tuk tuk.  As I passed the men I smiled at them and said: “Thank-you, thank-you, I found her, she got her top back.”

And one of them quickly darted back:  “No...thank-you for being here.”

Photo - local bus driver wearing my cowboy hat on part of the journey from Munnar to Kochi (South India).